


Earth Sucks

by ayellowbirds



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 09:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1423690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayellowbirds/pseuds/ayellowbirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after arriving on Earth, Sideswipe makes some observations about what he does not like about the Earth. The Earth proceeds to give him more to be worried about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earth Sucks

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Weather](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/43738) by Wily Red and Galeforce Gold. 



“You know Prowl, we’ve seen enough of the Earth now that I think I can say there’s exactly two things I don’t like about it,” said Sideswipe. 

He and the Autobot strategist were driving the long way back to the Autobots’ temporary Earth headquarters from a meeting with some representatives of the planet’s native governments. It had been only a few of the planet’s rotations since they had awakened from stasis, but Optimus Prime had declared the importance of getting on good terms with the indigenous species, a surprisingly Transformer-like organic race called “humans”. 

Well, they were like Transformers in root mode, but unlike Cybertronians or any of a number of other sensible species throughout the galaxy, they were stuck in one form. Anything in the way of real travel meant they had to use vehicles, whose forms the Autobots had adopted for their trans-forms. 

But in spite of that failing, they seemed pretty reasonable. Prowl had done most of the talking to their leaders, while Sideswipe just stood back and tried to look inoffensive and friendly. Fortunately, if there was any skill the red warrior had mastered, it was avoiding seeming responsible for catastrophes, and the whole thing was over pretty quickly. 

Supposedly there were plans for human scientists to come visit the Autobots and do some analysis and exchange of information, and there was some talk about making arrangements for further meetings. It was all pretty boring, though, Sideswipe was glad he didn’t have to be part of it for much longer. Unfortunately, conserving energy and devoting other resources to keeping an eye out for Decepticon activity meant taking the long way back to base, across the length of a region the humans called “the United States”.

“What’s that, Sideswipe,” Prowl said flatly, a lack of patience after many long kliks of driving with the trouble-making soldier causing him to drop the rising inflection that would have turned it into a question.

“First of all, it’s dry. Dry and dirty,” Sideswipe explained, cheerfully ignoring his superior’s disdain. “Seems like you can’t drive a few breems without getting all kinds of gritty little particles of… some kind of minerals, all over.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.” Prowl pointedly picked up speed, his engine roaring. It wasn’t enough to drown out Sideswipe, particularly since they were communicating over internal comms rather than audio, but it felt nice to have something else to listen to.

“You know, Beachcomber even said that some of it’s not mineral? He said,” Sideswipe’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial hush as he quoted the Autobot geologist, “some of it is _decomposed organic matter!_ All of these, what do you call them, the stationary autotrophic organisms?”

“I think they’re called ‘trees’,” replied Prowl, taking note of the large swathes of the towering shafts of organic matter by the sides of the road. He was aware that there were similar vegetative life-forms on other planets with lots of organic life, and there was a certain similarity to the cable jungles back on Cybertron, though these were a lot messier.

“Right, he said that it seemed like a lot of it was broken-down trees, and other organic plants, and _maybe even some remnants of the mobile life-forms_ ,” Sideswipe continued, sounding disgusted but also somewhat amused at the idea. “So, yeah, all of that, getting all over you? The minerals are bad enough, but who knows what that organic stuff can do if it gets into your system!”

Prowl vented air, and made a noncommittal noise that might have been an agreement, but Sideswipe did not continue, to Prowl’s relief. The two drove in silence as the sky began to darken; signs nearby indicated they were entering an area named “Chippewa County”. Comparing the maps he had scanned with the distance traveled and the road signs, Prowl noted with some dissatisfaction that they weren’t even half-way back.

“Hey, I think my internal chronometer’s busted,” said Sideswipe, pulling Prowl out of the beginnings of a travel-induced funk. “The sun isn’t supposed to set this early, right?”

“No,” Prowl replied, pulling up to the side of the road and coming to a stop before transforming and looking around. “In this hemisphere of the planet, it’s summer.”

As Sideswipe pulled up and transformed to stand beside him, Prowl gestured towards the horizon, and then up. Thick clouds covered the sky, a blanket of moisture vapor far more vast than anything that might be seen in the thinner, drier atmosphere of Cybertron. 

“Some kind of weather phenomenon?” asked Sideswipe, looking around.

“Looks like it,” Prowl mumbled, barely vocalizing. “We should secure some shelter and radio Prime, just in case.”

Prowl began to walk towards a fork in the road that branched off into a more narrow avenue, which led towards a number of the human buildings. They were such tiny creatures, and in this area, their dwellings seemed even smaller than normal. Few were tall enough that a Cybertronian could stand upright in them, but a half a klik away, a few larger buildings that might be storage facilities were visible.

“Why? I thought Teletraan I said this planet didn’t have corrosive rains,” said Sideswipe, suddenly nervous.

“Just the same,” replied Prowl, headed towards the larger buildings, “I’d rather not be caught out in it. Come on, let’s see if we can make contact with some local humans.”

Sideswipe shrugged, and followed. The buildings were sparser than most of the communities they’d passed through, but at the same time the roads were far more narrow, and he found himself frequently looking out to see if there were any oncoming vehicles to avoid, his navigation subroutines pinging his processor with warnings. After the fifth time he felt compelled to look back at the empty road, he gave up and moved over to the curb to walk directly behind Prowl. 

Without the alerts going off every few nano-cycles, Sideswipe was able to pay attention to other things. The stiff alertness in Prowl’s posture, taking measured glances over the surrounding area, not quite darting but surveying the landscape like he did when advancing through hostile territory, all those vorns back on Cybertron. Sensors picked up increased humidity, and now that he was just walking instead of driving, Sideswipe became aware of the constant wind. The light filtering through the dark clouds above cast everything in strange, muted colors, and there was a sort of whistling as the air currents moved around. But aside from the muffled thumping sounds of two Cybertronians walking across the soil of the roadside, that was all the noise there was.

“Gee, kinda lonesome,” said Sideswipe. Everywhere else they had gone, they had attracted attention, apparently even just because of their vehicle modes. Evidently Prowl looked like one of the civilian law enforcement vehicles, while Sideswipe and his brother Sunstreaker had been refitted in the likeness of an exceptionally expensive and stylish model (which suited the two of them just fine). “Would have figured we’d attract a crowd by now.”

“You’ve noticed,” Prowl said, a bit of surprise in his tone. “Maybe all that training actually paid off. Seems like the humans are hiding from something—not us, though.”

Prowl approached a nearby building, and crouched down.

“There’s signs that they left in a hurry,” he said, pointing to the windows of what appeared to be a business selling tools and other maintenance supplies. He pushed at the door, which didn’t budge. “The lights were left on, but the entrance is locked. And… hm.”

“What’s up?” Sideswipe asked, getting down on one knee to look inside. 

“There’s a broadcast radio on inside, I guess they left it on,” Prowl listened for a moment, and then extended a pair of antennae from behind his audials. “Can’t quite make it out, too much static. Let’s see I can pick up the signal, maybe there’s some kind of news announcement.”

The military strategist began walking around in search of better reception down the street, while Sideswipe straightened up and looked out into the distance. There was still no sign of any humans, but he could see heavy precipitation falling from the clouds in the distance. 

Memories of encounters with specialized jet warriors with weather weapons made him shudder, but he reminded himself that the preliminary reports indicated that the rain here was harmless as long as he kept up with maintenance and ensured his essential systems were insulated against moisture.

Prowl grunted. “I’m picking up some kind of automated warning announcement for the adjacent counties, about… hm, I’m not familiar with that word. I’m going to see if I can connect to a computer system with more information, hold on.”

While Prowl walked over to one of the organic-matter poles the humans used to support utility cables, making physical contact to establish a connection with the wired system, Sideswipe watched the movement of the clouds in the distance. They were moving fast, even faster than the wind down at his level—though that was a lot faster than it had seemed a few minutes ago—and the precipitation was catching up with him and Prowl as the air currents shifted in their direction. It was strange, though; he’d never seen clouds make a spiraling shape like that. It was kind of beautiful, but eerie.

“There we go, let’s see,” Prowl muttered, focusing on decoding the data from the human-made computer systems into something which a Cybertronian central processor could read. “Well, that’s—oh.”

The cloud formation was spiraling in on itself, and Sideswipe found himself feeling a bit dizzy just looking at it. Abruptly, the center of the spiral began to descend, like fluid being poured down into a funnel, still whirling around. From what must have been a little more than one hic into the planet’s atmosphere, the spiraling, pointed cloud descended down, down… and made contact with the ground.

“Sideswipe, we have to go,” said Prowl, coming up behind the warrior. The impossible cloud was moving, warping as it headed in their direction. At its base, soil was being visibly kicked up, whirling into the air around the spiraling dark shape, which was now obviously moving towards them.

“Prowl...” Sideswipe began, but his words hung in the air, and his pedes seemed stuck to the street.

“Don’t panic,” Prowl’s tone was even, steady. “Transform and drive as fast as you can.”

“What is that-?” As much as he wanted to move, he couldn’t. This was impossible, clouds didn’t do that. They rained, sure. Sometimes they rained acid, which was pretty awful. But clouds didn’t stab into the ground like a drill and start spinning towards you, taller than a trio of Guardian robots standing on each other’s shoulders. Suddenly, Prowl’s servo was on his arm, gripping him tight and pulling him backwards.

“Sideswipe, _move!_ ”

The sharp yank was enough to get his battle computer running and put him in the right state of mind, and a near-reflexive transformation brought Sideswipe onto the paved street and rolling for it. The shift into vehicle mode brought with it the usual re-prioritizing of sensor nets, including the 360° visual sensors that let him see the impossible cloud, and the radio receivers that let him pick up on human broadcasts identifying it as a “tornado”. His auto-translation subroutines confirmed a match for the unfamiliar term with the weather phenomenon, ticking it off as related to the terminology for large storms found on gas giants and barren dwarf planets generally considered too hostile to Cybertronian life to approach.

“Prowl,” Sideswipe whined over the comm system, “I want to go back home!”

Even though the sharp drill of the tornado was far enough away that it seemed small (though his processor was giving him the numbers on how big it actually was, and he was trying hard to ignore it), Sideswipe felt and heard the circling, howling winds nearing their position, in spite of both him and Prowl accelerating as fast as they could. That the local roads were not a straightaway meant they were significantly slowed by making turns and dodging obstacles as the tornado neared the community, when they weren’t slowed down by having to take short-cuts over unpaved terrain.

A proximity alert flashed, and Sideswipe nearly swerved into Prowl’s bumper as he tried to dodge a flying metal waste receptacle kicked up by the winds. The radio broadcast—now crackling with interference and repeating the results of other prior and concurrent tornadoes—paused for a firm but insistent voice advising listeners on proper safety measures if they were in the path of a tornado. Structures to avoid, locations of adequate shelters, and an exhortation to avoid—

“Prowl, we gotta get off the road!”, Sideswipe called, at nearly the exact same time that Prowl commanded “Follow me, we have to get off the road!”

A rolling transformation was always risky business guaranteed to damage something, but fortunately the storefront Sideswipe careened into took most of the damage. Tumbling out as quickly as he could manage and ignoring the warnings about scuffs and dents, he followed Prowl as the Autobot officer lead him to a very structurally sound-looking building. He could barely make out Prowl explaining that he was tapping into the controls for a garage, opening a large metal door that slid to the side on wheels and dragging Sideswipe in before pulling the door shut behind them.

The inside of the building revealed some kind of small engineering facility, evidently built by the humans to maintain their vehicles. A beaten and fatigued-looking truck was raised on a platform in the center of the rather cramped space, and a variety of tools were hung on walls and laid on shelves around the space. But more importantly, the space was secure and adequately shielded from the weather. Which Sideswipe was very glad for, as flying debris soon became audible smashing into the walls outside.

He overheard a number of things crashing outside over the incredible roar of wind, that his processors told him was most likely a building collapsing into another. These sounds continued for mere astrominutes, but with how it seemed to fill the world around him and erase everything else beyond the walls of the small building, it may as well have been a centivorn. Eventually, the noise began to lessen, and Sideswipe realized that he was huddled against Prowl. 

The strategist nodded at him, and put a servo to his audial, extending his antenna again, most likely to listen for radio signals.

“Seems like this one’s moving out of our way, and I think I can navigate us to a safe area. It was… huh. Hang on, let me check something on the info I got earlier.” Prowl said, then went quiet for a moment. “They have a rating scale for intensity and threat level. This was an ‘F3’.”

“Out of…?” Sideswipe asked, straightening up and shifting away from Prowl.

“Seems like it usually only goes up to five, but theoretically it goes higher,” said Prowl, sounding a bit distant. He was most likely trying to detach himself from the situation. He moved to the door, and attempted to budge it, but it had bowed inward at some point and was stuck. He motioned for Sideswipe to help, and the two forced the door back, warping it even more out of shape but making enough of a passage to exit one at a time. Prowl led the way.

“We were lucky,” he said, venting a long, slow whistle at the devastation around them. 

Sideswipe hadn’t seen a disaster area like it since the most active stages of the war. Buildings and other structures had collapsed all around them. The roofs of some had been torn off, thrown about or flung so far away that he couldn’t tell for sure which was which. Large objects—trash receptacles, stones, shafts of vegetable matter torn from trees, metal signs, even one small two-wheeled unpowered vehicle—had been scattered about, in many places having broken through windows and thin walls. A few of the larger vehicles had been pushed, badly scratched and dented. Glass was everywhere from ruined windows and windshields. 

A very large lamppost had fallen over the building the pair of Autobots had used as a shelter. It hadn’t been completely uprooted, however, and clung tenaciously to the ground by some sturdy cables. A little more force, and it might have fallen loose and slammed into the wall. Sideswipe wasn’t sure that the stones and mortar would have held.

Through it all, the rain continued to fall from the sky, cold droplets tapping down on his frame. Prowl splashed through a puddle, kicking aside some unidentifiable piece of debris. He looked to one of the more clear roads. “Prime would want us to see if we can help the humans.” 

“I don’t want to, I want to get out of here,” Sideswipe muttered. “But I also don’t want to see Optimus’s faceplate when we show up after _not_ helping.”

Prowl nodded. “Yeah. Well, think how it must be for the people who live here. Speaking of which, I think I see some movement out that way.”

He led Sideswipe’s gaze to the southeast, where he could just make out a door swinging open near the base of one of the other sturdier buildings, human faces peeking out. The two transformed and began rolling carefully between the debris, towards the survivors.

“So,” Prowl said as he looped around a wall that had fallen into the street, “you said there were two things you don’t like about Earth?”

Sideswipe braked in surprise. He was asking that _now?_

“Um, yeah,” the red warrior replied, accelerating to catch up. 

“What’s the second thing?” asked Prowl, driving through a puddle left by a busted pipe, mixed with the falling rainwater. It kicked up a small wave.

“When it isn’t dry and dusty, it’s wet. Wet, and _windy_.”


End file.
